The Thing With the Fins

My eyes fluttered open.

I was in a brightly lit room with stainless steel walls, and I could not move. There was an antiseptic aroma in the air with a tinge of chlorine, or slightly briny...it stung the inside of my nostrils. The inability to move did not frighten me so much as I would have expected, but the oddly familiar scent of this unfamiliar room gave me a small feeling of dread. Something was wrong.

Upon realizing this I convulsed slightly on the platform on which I rested. In my mental haze I attempted to survey my surroundings but I could not figure out whether I was on an operating table or a bed. All my thoughts seemed to meet a wall at the end of their fruition, such that the true nature of my ("captivity" was the word that sprung to mind, clearer than the other thoughts, but just as soon washed away on a wave of comfortable apathy)... situation. From somewhere deep within my mind came an alert that my convulsion had engaged unnatural muscles, but I could no sooner think about the ramifications of that signal than could I hop on a unicorn that would take me to the end of the rainbow.

Back pain seared unexpectedly. I gasped "Gabriel" and returned to blissful unconsciousness.

(Several months earlier)

"Look at this poor guy, Gabe. He doesn't deserve to be held like this." I turned to my boyfriend, who was intently watching the graceful movements of the orca whale, popularly known as Nakaki.

Nakaki had become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years, being the star of the aquarium-slash-amusement park known as Poseidonia. People travelled from across the country to see Nakaki perform simple tricks in which he was fed fish in exchange for jumping through hoops. I, personally, found it degrading and wrong to see a fellow mammal treated in such a manner. Nakaki belonged out in the sea, not the putrid confines of a small pool, commanded to "ask" "how high" when the trainers said "jump". It had come to light that Poseidonia was being investigated on charges of animal abuse when its star was not in the public eye.

"We must do something."

Gabe turned and looked at me. There was a mischevious glint in his normally calm green eyes. He leaned in, his breath hot on my shoulder as he said, "I have just the plan."

(000)

I awoke again, my breathing strenuous. This time, someone else was in the room with me.

"How are you, Daisy?" The voice echoed against the stainless steel confines of this strange room.

I attempted to answer, but my own voice was weak. My breathing became increasingly belabored. It felt like a huge weight was being pressed down on my chest. Feeling desperate, I tried shifting, but my body felt all wrong. It was something akin to partial paralysis, and yet...

A hand rested gently on my shoulder. "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done, you know." It was a female voice, not particularly chastising, but harsh nonetheless, despite its dulcet tones.

My eyes rolled around in my head. From the sound of it the woman was checking machines and read outs. Five minutes passed before I was able to muster the strength to speak.

"Where is Gabe?" My voice warbled. It sounded alien to me, slightly lower than I'd spoken previously, and possessed a new chordal quality, as if every word were echoing in some other octave at the same time.

The woman continued her work without interruption for a minute more, then came over into my line of vision. Dazed as I was, I saw an attractive woman in a white lab coat. She wore red lipstick and grinned at me, not entirely maliciously, but as if I were - how to put it - an object of contempt, ridicule, or pity. That grin was even more unnerving to me than the strange new quality of my voice, or the unfamiliar room with the familiar smell.

"Don't worry about him, hon. He's next door. You'll be reunited soon." I started to ask what she meant by that but she briskly walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her with a clean metallic clang.

((((((((()))))))))))

The next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness, aware at the edge of my brain that something major was happening, something that I should be frightened of, but I was too drugged to care.

One day the nurse came back. "You may see Gabriel today" she commanded. "But first." Out of nowhere, it appeared, several large men arrived and quickly attended to me. As I was still quite under the influence, my wonder at the fact that such a group would come to attend to me evaporated as they picked me up. Surprisingly, one of them grunted under my weight. Had I been in a clearer state of mind, I might have taken offense, as I had always been quite slender. But now, the weight of consciousness oppressed me more and, nestling my face into the arm of one of the thugs, I slept.

((((((((()))))))))))

"Daisy!" This time I awoke immediately, as Gabe's voice drew me out of the miasma of unconsciousness.

"Gabe!" I exclaimed, twisted around to see where the voice was coming from, and promptly fell off a bed.

That's when I really and truly realized that something was wrong, and was conscious enough to appreciate the magnitude.

My legs were no longer. Amazed, I surveyed the area from my belly button down, tentatively feeling this foreign appendage. From below my navel, my shapely legs had been replaced by a long, familiar tail, about a meter long, that appeared as if it had been grafted to my hips. But, no... grafted is not the right word, for the unmistakable organicness of my... my tail, was irrefutable. Jaw dropped in awe, I bent over to examine it more closely. Almost embarrasingly, I examined where my genitalia had been. There was no longer any space between my legs - no legs to differentiate it from - so both my vagina and anus had been pushed forward to form a - I guess it would be called a cloaca - on the front of my tail. Pressing my palm against it, hairless and rubbery, I felt a strong sensation of pleasure that would have forced me to my knees, had I any knees left.

Protruding from between my toned buttocks was a familiar fin. When I clenched my cheeks, the fin would tug on some muscle attached to my cloaca, contracting it with a pleasurable tug. It sprouted almost elegantly from my butt and complemented the arc of my back. However, it did make it hard to sit as I was accustomed to sitting, had I still been fully human.

Fins were everywhere. I had two dorsal fins, the aforementioned buttock fin and one higher and larger on my back. Two ventral fins protruded from my hips. I had two on my arms. And, of course, I had the magnificent splayed tail, in a marbelized black and white pattern where my feet had once been.

It clicked and I realized where I had seen that pattern before. I had seen it on Nakaki.

For some reason my breasts had become enormous. They were nicely sculpted before, but now they were cartoonish and baloonish, interrupting the streamlined form of my new body with their obviousness. I did not know what they were for, but I did notice several gills underneath them, flapping silently.

At first, I cried. I cried for hours, sitting on the cold stainless steel floor, my tail curled up beneath me, yet still flapping against the steel; my caudal fin protruding like an accusatory finger from my rear and poking into the floor; my ridiculous breasts heaving and defying gravity. I was a freak, and I did not know how or why this happened.

Until a reassurring arm placed itself around my sobbing chest. I looked up, eyes filled with tears, and saw Gabe's grin.

He hugged me. I lifted my head towards his and we kissed, passionately; I was grateful that he still desired me, despite my grotesque new form.

I then felt one of his tentacles inch softly and gently toward my cloaca, and I arched up to meet his touch, unconcerned for the moment about our new forms...

(to be continued)